“I don’t want too many things,” Alberta Ferretti said backstage, making fluttery hand gestures signifying ruffles and frills. “I felt this was an important moment to look back at the past and to think about what I want for the present.” Ferretti has spent a lifetime in fashion, the better part of it embellishing her clothes with the “things” on which she said she’s turned her back for Spring. Her words signaled a change.

Indeed, the sleek black maillots that opened today’s show suggested this might be a straight-up reinvention. Ferretti paired the one-pieces with studded jelly sandals and nylon windbreakers, inspired by the women she saw on holiday this summer who sported their swimwear out to parties—athleisure, Alberta-style. The streamlined sensibility of those bathing suits extended into a halter-neck dress and a plunge-front jumpsuit, both in black and both finished subtly in leather. Ferretti is known in celebrity-stylist circles for her delicate chiffon dresses—“my material,” she calls it. So she was back in more familiar territory with a series of chiffon numbers, but this season’s didn’t have the red-carpet potential they usually do, what with the wan nude shade in which they were cut and/or their thick leather apron straps.